McDonald's
by Pirateweasel
Summary: Pure Crack! I own nothing...no, really. If you sue me, all you get is my hat. Please don't, I like my hat.


He hated this place.

He hated this whole User world; its imperfections, its disorderliness, its chaos.

And most of all, he hated this job.

He had been the system administrator for the entire Grid; a world of its own in its own right. He had been programmed to perfect the system, and change the User world. He had taken the system to its maximum potential.

And now, he was trapped here, in this disturbingly disorganized world that the Users inhabited.

Trapped, having to work at this job...

One would have thought that the Users would have appreciated having someone straighten out the flaws in their world, leading it smoothly towards perfection. However, once he was in the User's world himself, he had soon found that this was not the case. Most days, he was even glad that he had been unable to bring the other programs; those who had trusted him, obeyed him, believed in him, and would have followed him even here, to this...place.

The User world had too many conflicts to have ever been viable in the system. There were too many different sights and sounds, too many textures and shapes. And smells. There were no smells in the system; and his first breath in the User world had almost overwhelmed him. What he was later able to identify as the smell of dust, the stale smell of a room that had been closed and undisturbed, and the smell of ozone had asaulted him as he had tried to orient himself. His departure from the arcade had only made it worse, as exhast fumes from cars, the scent of trees, grass and flowers, and discarded litter had met him at every turn.

Colors refused to stay the same. They changed depending on the light around them, the color next to them, sometimes even the shape of the item that they colored.

And everything was always changing! Almost nothing stayed stable. Things grew taller, changed weights, changed shape, contour, color. Even the Users themselves were always changing, or trying to... Their shape, weight, haircolor or style...constantly changing their clothing.

No, it was better that the other programs had been unable to join him in the Users' world. This was not a good place for his people here...and yet, it hurt so much to have broken his word, to have left them behind...even if he had never meant to enter this world without them. He had broken his word; and he had sworn to never betray them. He hated Kevin Flynn all the more for having caused this.

CLU had barely managed to force his way into the portal; only to find, when he tried to bring the other programs through, that Kevin Flynn had blocked them. Had, in fact, blocked any program from passing through the portal; out or in. He could not return to his world, his people. Unless, that was, Kevin Flynn relented and allowed him to do so.

It had not been a pleasant realization.

He had, after a time, been able to find and obtain help at what the Users called both a 'mission' and a 'homeless shelter'. He snorted to himself at the thought. As if Users truly understood what a mission was. It was your directive, your base code, the reason you WERE. Not a collection of Users with no apparent direction or functions to fufill.

Regardless of what they had called it, the Users there had helped him to obtain energy, food, as they called it; and appropriate garb. They had made strangely sympathetic faces and noises when he had given his identity as they requested; and said that they would help him "get his life started back on track". He had tried to explain that this was not needed; that if he could get the younger Flynn and the ISO to make Kevin Flynn allow him to enter the Grid again, he would do so. In which case, this help of their's would be unneeded.

Instead, they had obtained this _JOB_ for him. And he began to understand why Flynn would not allow him to return to his home.

He was being punished.

This _J_OB was a torment that Flynn must have devised somehow to punish him for succeeding in perfecting the system when Flynn had not. For following his primary directives. The unfairness of it made him both rage with anger inside, and want to weep at what it had done to him, all at the same time.

"Clu!"

The voice cut through his musings, abruptly reminding him of his current surroundings.

"Clu, what are you doing, man? You are supposed to be out there wiping down tables and booths. You were just staring out into space, again. If you keep doing that, ol' Crom is going to catch you at it and freak out. You know how he gets, " the owner of the voice, a young male User was saying. Toby, as he had told CLU to identify him, was not so bad, for a User; however he seemed happy to continue his runtime-life, CLU reminded himself-without a clearly defined function. He usually spent the time that he was not working "just hanging out, ya' know, with my girl and my buds". Right now, however, he was watching CLU as if to see if he would complete his assigned tasklist.

With a sigh, CLU grabbed the bottle of cleanser and a rag, and went out to clean the eating area. His nose wrinkled in distaste at the sharp, biting odor of the cleanser. He disliked the smell the most of this particular task; although he did get a small sense of satisfaction from seeing the area cleaned and organized.

Not that it was ever truly organized.

That was the most frustrating part of dealing with this job. The fact that while everything appeared at first glance, to be standardized, regimented, and organized; a closer look proved that this was not the case.

It had bothered him enough that he had gone to the administrator of the mission that was housing him and stated that he could not work at the _JOB_ because of it.

The administrator, an older User with white hair, had shook her head when he said this.

"Clu, honey," she had said. "It just doesn't work that way."

Honey. He had not understood what she meant by calling him that; until he had come into contact with the substance while working one day.  
Horrid stuff, this honey. It would be solid, crystillized in its container. And then, as it warmed, or the humidity rose, it would turn into a liquid. It would come oozing out of the bottle, looking like a harmless liquid, until it touched you. Instead of simply drying up and leaving you unchanged, it would only become stickier, clinging to you even more and causing anything that you touched in such a state to stick to the affected area as well.

What on the Grid had he ever done to this User to make her refer to him as 'honey'?

"Clu, the shift leader wants you to work the front register for a while," one of the other workers informed him as he re-entered the food preperation and service area.

He nodded in assent, and went to take his place at the order placement area and logged in as the user for the register. It was not long before he was busy taking orders.

"Thank you for coming to McDonald's. May I take your order?"

His shift continued without incident, until he looked up take the next order and was met with a familiar-looking face.

"You!" he said, shocked. "How did you-what-" A hard look came into his eyes.

"What did he tell you to do?" he asked, his voice cold and flat. "Did he send you here to derezz me? Or did you simply come here to mock me?"

The face in front of him looked confused. "I'm sorry? What do you mean? Did who send me here?"

"You know who!" CLU snarled at him. "Flynn! He sent you here to see me being punished, didn't he? This is just like him. Well, you go back and tell Kevin Flynn that..."

"Kevin Flynn?" the face before him interupted. "When did you see Kevin Flynn?"

"When he trapped me here, almost six User weeks ago. I would have thought that he would have told you all about it when he removed my overwrites, Tron.

"Tron? Wait a minute, how do you know what Flynn called me?"

"Did he really think that changing your render slightly would keep me from recognizing you?" CLU asked, a sneer curling his lip. "I would have thought after all this time, at least _YOU_ would have known better."

"Where is Kevin now?" came the demand, in a loud voice.

"Why should I tell you what you already know?" CLU asked, raising his voice even louder.

"Tell me what you know..."

The two of them continued to argue, their voices reaching almost to shouts as each demanded information from the other.

"Is there a problem here, Newl?" came an irritated voice from near CLU's shoulder.

"I was just trying to find out what this customer would like from the menu," CLU said with a glare at the angry figure that was glaring back at him from the other side of the counter.

"I think that Sharon will take over assisting this customer, and you and I will go back to my office and have a little chat," said the User at his side, a dark haired man who was now giving CLU a look of superior disdain.

With a huff, he turned to follow the other man towards the back of the building where the office was located.

As soon as the door closed, the manager of the business rounded angrily on CLU.

"Care to tell me what that was about, Newl?" he asked.

"It was nothing important, Crom..."

"That's Mr. Henderson, to you Newl," snapped the officious little man. "I happen to be a full branch manager here at McDonald's, and I will be spoken to with respect."

"My name is CLU," CLU said, stiffly, "Not Newl. CLU Smythe, if you check my personnal file."

"Yeah? Well, you need to get a clue. Arguing with customers like Mr. Bradley out there is no way to move up in business. He happens to be a highly placed executive with Encom, and I know he didn't get there by going against regulations.

If something like this happens again, you're done here. And unless I am gravely mistaken, you need to do well at this job to get anywhere, don't you?"

CLU looked at the manager, unhappy, and unable to disagree.

CLU might not know much about the User world; however, he knew one thing with absolute certainty.

He really hated this job.


End file.
